Interconnects and Home Theater?

Bear with me folks, I'm kind of new to this game. Apologies for my ignorance in advance.

Q1) As far as I can tell there is no good reason to listen to music in surround sound as that's not the way the music is meant to be heard, correct? (Read on to see where I’m going with this, pls.)

Q2) Under that premise, then you only really need good ICs for the front channels and the center (so the timbres are matched during home theater use) but don’t really need really expensive ICs for the rear channels, correct? In that case, I can spend the majority of the money on the ICs for the front channels (to maximize musical listening sound) from the source to the pre/pro and the pre/pro to the amp, and save myself a little bit on the surround channel IC’s? Do I have this right?

Q3) Finally, do most of you try to use the same type of IC from the source all the way to the amp? I would think mixing flavors of ICs isn't desirable as you may get a compounding of weaknesses from one IC to the either (i.e. the undesirable bright qualities of one and the poor bass delivery of another).

My system is as follows: Krell HTS 7.1 pre/pro, Rotel RMB 1075 amp, Sonus Faber Grand Pianos, Solo, and Home speakers , Sony DVD/SACD 777ES, Analysis Plus Oval 9 for the front and center channel, Analysis Plus Oval 12 for the rears.

70% of the time the system will be used for 2 channel audio listening.

Thanks in advance.